


The Pieces Don't Fit Together

by ParadifeLoft



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, aman - Freeform, post-Flight of the Noldor Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elenwe visits Amarie after being reborn in Valinor, and speaks with her about the Noldor, and the Vanyar, and moving on from pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pieces Don't Fit Together

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Elenwë/Amarië, the old ways are lost" and originally posted at Elleth's [Tolkien femslash comment meme](http://elleth.dreamwidth.org/309910.html).

"I visited my family today," was the first thing of substance that Elenwë said. She'd sat, initially, when Amarië had indicated a chair for her beside her own, but barely a moment later she was standing again, moving in the space before Amarië and in front of the long window in a slowed, shrunken court dancer's pattern. (Pacing, of course, would be unseemly… Amarië found it difficult to keep an expression of much concern from her face even so.)

She inclined her head politely at Elenwë's comment; she was not sure, yet, whether this was precisely an invitation, or a signal of warning - but Elenwë would not come to her home to speak only words of almost threatening frustration _directed_ at her, would she? She would try, at least, the invitation, she supposed.

"They were glad to see you, I imagine?" Amarië responded then, cautiously.

Elenwë's lips tightened, briefly, and there was a touch of something vulnerable about her eyes. "Yes. To see me. Less so to see an exile returned here from the Halls."

_That_ gave Amarië cause to stand, and she followed the other woman to the window. Sunlight glittered on the green of the hills and white marble of the city buildings, almost like the radiance of Laurelin, to look at it. If one didn't dip too deeply into thought. "But you are not…."

She reached up to touch Elenwë's shoulder.

"Not what?" replied Elenwë, and Amarië found herself then subject to her rather searching gaze. Elenwë's golden hair was twisted back in several braids to the top of her head, where the remaining length fell loose down her back, and it was strung through with cords of tiny jewels.

"Not Noldor? Not an exile?"

Amarië was clearly not _meant_ to agree with such a statement, but what else was she to do? "The exiles were shut out from Valinor," she said. If A, then B. If not-B, then not-A.

"And the Valar would agree with you - if only because I convinced them so. But now I am here, and I may be whatever I like."

"But not what your family would like," Amarië said, too quickly, and she looked down a moment later at her skirts. "My apologies."

She didn't, after all, wish she had left. But that didn't mean she'd wanted to be pushed between two sets of people she loved and forced to choose. Not that Elenwë, of course, deserved to see the outpouring of her occasional bitterness over the topic.

And yet still - "But you _aren't_ a Noldo. Even if you would - _dress_ as one." Perhaps it was more the jewels in her hair and the deep dye of her dress that matched them; the structured fashions of Tirion that had been at their height a century ago that her friend adorned herself with (a gift, wasn't it, from one of Turukáno's brothers, or perhaps a cousin?), that had upset Elenwë's parents more than her simply being _alive_.

Elenwë stiffened at the words though, and for a moment Amarië felt a flash of anxiety that Elenwë had sensed some snippet of what she'd thought, stinging and unfit for being spoken in its first raw form that way.

Only a moment, though. Such sensitivity to the minds of others was not a common talent, even if the ease with which it came to her thoughts might have suggested otherwise. She did not so need to worry over the possibility. Not now.

A pause hovered between Elenwë's lips before she spoke then, eyes steady as they met Amarië's.

"I have a husband and a daughter, and _we all_ have a kindred people, that are sundered from us by action and inaction, left to death and grief. I heard the prophecy, Amarië. And everyone here wishes to circle themselves inside the gates of Valimar and pretend our light comes still from our Trees instead of their last fruits, and say no word of the Noldor as if to speak of them would bring down the spectre of the fear that caused them to leave. How quickly you all forget that we shared their cities and their lives and their homes, once." And a second pause then, like two mirrored lines of a poem. "To see anything but, is reminder enough for me."

She broke off her gaze not long after the words stopped flowing, and turned away from the window not long after that. When she took hold of the layers of her skirts to sit - lapis blue shot with golden thread - Amarië followed her to the far edge of the sun-warmed sofa and settled beside her.

"We cannot live our lives bound to those who _left_ us," she said then, gentle, though there was no question to it. "We move on from them. We keep our lives, not stay tied to shadows."

Elenwë gave her a sad smile, and took Amarië's hand. She brushed her thumb over Amarië's knuckles, and Amarië returned the smile, a bit more hesitantly. She was not sure, yet, what she was smiling at. "We don't stay tied, but only if the shadows cannot come back. That is as the Valar say, no?"

Amarië doubted she had any answer that would please her. But she thought of everything wrought by the things which had later been swept away, and the things wrought in their absence. "Wisely, more often then not," she murmured, finally. "How many hurts have festered, for the shadows created; and how many would spring up again if they returned?" Perhaps she knew better than most here, too, or at least most personally. It was a long engagement made longer, after all, for the strife that her parents had wished to avoid until it might be settled.

She was right, of course; the answer didn't please. The set of Elenwë's mouth was stern, though at least there was no anger behind it. Or none for her, at least.

"And if the shadows were created by allowing another's lamp to be smashed, and then nothing was done to redress it, then there is a hurt there as well, and an injustice to compound it. And our world is not made better by huddling the in the pool of floor left lit and pretending it is all we ever had. "

Elenwë's fingers were warm when they moved from Amarië's hand to the side of her jaw, and the tender press of a light kiss to her forehead made her think of soft lips against skin. "And I think you tie yourself to your hurts just as you tell me I do, no?"

Amarië took Elenwë's other hand in hers, and did not look her in the eyes.


End file.
